


Hallelujah

by bdol



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Future Fic, Gen, Grand Prix Final, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, References to Depression, Suicide Attempt, past suicide attempt(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 09:25:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bdol/pseuds/bdol
Summary: At Yuri's first Grand Prix Final with Victor by his side as both a coach and competitor, he opts to skate a routine that the world had never seen before. One different from what he performed in his qualifying events.A routine that he has carried with him since he tried to kill himself years ago.





	Hallelujah

**Author's Note:**

> This is my piece for the Yuri!!! On Ice 2017 Shit Bang on tumblr.
> 
> I was paired with the lovely [ yt-anime-trash ](https://yt-anime-trash.tumblr.com) as my artist.
> 
> WARNING: This fic does contain graphic descriptions of two separate suicide attempts via wrist-cutting and pill ingestion

The routine was an old one but new at the same time. Yuri stood in the center of the ice in a dark black costume, save for the electric blue mesh stripes on the inside of each forearm that then wrapped around his elbow and up his bicep. They stopped at his shoulders; the left tapered off near his back towards his shoulder blade, and the right tapered off towards his right pectoral. There were three sheer stripes over his heart that were vaguely reminiscent of claw marks. It wasn’t the costume that had been commissioned for Yuri’s free skate this season. 

And then the music started. The slow plucking of the opening notes of ‘Hallelujah’ filtered through the arena; Yuri began a graceful step sequence that oozed sorrow. This was not the program Yuri skated in the qualifying events for the Grand Prix Final, and it certainly wasn’t the music Victor had given to the officials before the start of the Final. Yuri’s theme this season was ‘Home’, and the free skate Yuri had performed earlier in the season was hopeful, conveying his desire for St. Petersburg to become such for him. Yuri must have gone to the organizers after him to change the program without telling him. 

Victor walked over from the Kiss and Cry to stand beside Minako with Yakov trailing behind him—she had accompanied them so that Yuri had someone to help him warm up while Victor met with Yakov. He had told the ISU officials that she was Yuri’s assistant coach so they could get her a badge. 

Yuri moved into a Charlotte spiral, and Minako audibly gasped. She held both hands over her mouth, and her eyes began to water. 

“Do you recognize this program?” Victor softly asked her, his eyes never leaving Yuri per their promise.

Minako nodded, “I do,” she whispered.

Victor pursed his lips, “I’m surprised Yuri didn’t show it to me. I thought he would have told me if he was working on a new program.”

“It’s not new,” Yakov interjected.

“How would  _ you _ know?” Victor retorted.

* * *

 

At Victor’s insistence, Yakov had given the Japanese Yuri a key to the rink. Victor told him that Yuri got anxious sometimes, and while Victor didn’t understand it, Yuri needed to practice when he felt that way. Skaters were odd creatures, and Yakov had seen more than a few anxious ones. Yuri would come back to the rink in the evenings for the most part, and Yakov left him alone. 

Yuri was usually quiet when he skated. On the nights where Yakov stayed late to do paperwork, he would occasionally look out the window of his office over the rink to see Yuri skating figures, his eyes downcast as he moved across the ice. 

On one of those nights, Yakov looked out the window and saw Yuri hooking up a music player to a docking station. He moved to the center of the ice and began to skate. Yakov could barely hear the music as it was playing but it didn’t matter—he heard the music through Yuri’s skating. The program was haunting and sorrowful, each of Yuri’s movements filled with so much pain.

It was a beautiful program, and the choreography was masterful; Yuri substituted singles and doubles where Yakov could tell triples and quads would normally be. Yakov wondered when Victor had had the time to put together such a clean and artful program in between his own training and coaching Yuri. After Yuri had finished, Yakov left his office to go downstairs to the rink. 

Yuri didn’t seem to notice as Yakov approached the boards; he was working through one of the step sequences he had just performed with a frown on his face. 

“Boy,” Yakov called out, startling Yuri, “Did Vitya make this program while he was in Japan with you?”

Yuri scrunched his eyebrows, confused, “No. Victor didn’t make this program.”

“Well then why are you making a new program if you already have one for this season?” Yakov inquired.

Understanding dawned across Yuri’s face, “This isn’t a new program for this season. It’s one I’ve had for a long time,” he replied.

Yakov narrowed his eyes, “I’ve seen all your programs from past competitions, and that wasn’t one.”

“That’s because I’ve never performed this program for anything,” Yuri confessed, “It’s something I only skate when I feel like I need to.”

Considering the melancholy nature of the program, Yakov elected not to press any further. He wasn’t equipped to deal with that sort of thing. He merely grunted in acknowledgement before turning to leave, calling out a reminder to Yuri to lock up when he was done.

* * *

 

“Sometimes he skates it when he comes in late instead of just doing figures,” Yakov answered, “I asked him about it once, and he said it was something he’d had for a long time.”

Victor hummed, “I wish he would have shown it to me.”

“He doesn’t like people seeing this program,” Minako sighed, “It’s always just been something cathartic for him ever since he made it back in high school. A means of coping.”

“He made something like that in _ high school _ ?” Victor exclaimed.

Minako frowned and nodded, "He put it together first as a dance routine back when he was sixteen. He’s modified it since then, but there’s no way I wouldn’t recognize it. Not after he spent three months dancing it every single day in my studio.”

“What drove him to make something so sad?” Victor asked her.

“It was something his therapist suggested after he was released from the hospital,” she murmured, “Art therapy is commonly used for treating suicidal patients.”

“Wait, what?” Victor jaw dropped, and he reluctantly tore his eyes away from Yuri to stare at Minako, “What do you mean  _ suicidal patients _ ?”

Minako continued to stare at Yuri as he danced across the ice, “Yuri was sixteen the first time he tried to kill himself. He spent a month in the hospital, and then was banned from the ice rink for another three, during which he spent almost all of his time in my studio.”

* * *

 

Yuri felt like he was drowning. Everything was too much, and he couldn’t handle it anymore. His jumps weren’t good enough. He had no friends outside of Takeshi and Yuko. He was the weird figure skater kid at school. And he was pretty sure he was gay. He was a fuck up. No one needed him. The three boys who cornered him and kicked him in the ribs after school made sure to remind him of it.

When he got home after practice, he went upstairs and locked himself in the bathroom. He turned on the shower, but didn’t get in. Instead, he desperately smashed his razor with a shampoo bottle until he was able to remove one of the blades. Yuri sat down with his back against the shower door and stared at the small little blade sitting in the palm of his hand. 

Yuri gingerly picked up the blade, holding it tightly between his thumb and index finger, and pushed up his sleeves. He dragged the razor blade vertically over tiny horizontal scars on his left wrist, making an incision three inches long. He then did the same to his right, dropping the blade on the tile when he finished.

Yuri held up his wrists and stared at them, transfixed by the blood that was running down his arms and dripping from his elbows. He then closed his eyes and leaned back against the shower door, letting his arms fall to his sides. 

He was almost unconscious when he heard Mari knocking at the door, calling to see if he was done yet. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt too heavy.

“Yuri! Are you in there?” Mari shouted, knocking at the door more forcefully.

Instead of answering, Yuri groaned weakly. He slumped and slid down until he was laying on the floor. 

Mari knocked several more times, calling out his name. Yuri felt so tired. And cold. He opened his eyes a crack just as the door was unlocked. He made eye contact with Mari as she rushed towards him, grabbing a towel with one hand and fumbling with her phone trying to call for an ambulance with the other. The last thing he heard was her yelling for their parents.

— 

Two days later, he woke up in a hospital room to the sound of a monitor beeping somewhere off to his left. Mari was asleep in one of the plastic chairs in the room, her head resting on the edge of his bed.

Yuri stared up at the ceiling, ‘Oh,’ he thought, ‘I'm still here.’

Shortly afterwards, a nurse came in and saw that he had woken up. There was a flurry of people in the room— Mari called their parents, and a doctor came by and talked with him for a while. It was all very overwhelming, but Yuri caught the words “depression”, “inpatient”, and “extended stay”.

And so he spent the next month in the psychiatric ward of the hospital, taking pills and going to group therapy. He learned how to play the piano during one of the music therapy sessions; he taught himself to play the song ‘Hallelujah’ after learning the basic scales. When the therapist asked him why he chose that song, he told her he didn’t quite know—it just felt right. 

His parents, Mari, and Minako all visited him during his stay. His parents and Mari regaled him with funny stories about guests, and Minako would tell him about new choreography she was putting together for her classes. At his request, Yuko and Takeshi never came to visit because Yuri was afraid of having them see him feeling so weak. The last thing he needed was for his only two friends to see him as a weakling like everyone else did.

Following his release from the hospital, Yuri was under close observation. His parents removed the locks from his bedroom door and the bathroom, and he was no longer allowed to go out on his own. Mari would walk him to school in the morning and pick him up afterwards to walk him to Minako’s studio, and she would come back after his lessons to take him home. Yuri would have preferred to go to Ice Castle Hasetsu, but he was banned from the ice for the next three months. His therapist had suggested that he needed time away from the rink since part of his depression stemmed from his perceived failures in skating, and so Minako was holding onto his ice skates until she felt he could be trusted around sharp things again. 

* * *

 

As the three of them stood by the boards, watching Yuri move through his heavy and sorrowful step sequence, Yurio ran over to them, wearing a worried expression.

“Hey, what the hell’s wrong with pork cutlet bowl? Yuko texted me, and she was freaking out, saying that something was seriously wrong,” Yurio asked, “She wanted me to ask Minako if this was Detroit all over again, whatever that means.”

Minako took a deep breath, steeling herself, “You know how Yuri went to college in Detroit?”

Victor and Yurio nodded and waited for her to continue.

“Yuko, Mari, and I flew out there three years ago when Yuri tried to kill himself the second time. He swallowed a handful of his anti-anxiety pills,” Minako said quietly, wrapping her arms around herself.

Yurio’s jaw dropped to the floor, “He did what?!”

* * *

 

Yuri fucked up. Majoring in accounting felt like the worst decision of his life. In the past year alone, the only competition he managed to medal in was the Japanese Nationals. He missed the podium in both of his Grand Prix qualifier events, he came in fourth at the Four Continents Championships and barely skimmed into tenth place at World’s. He was already 21 years old and hadn’t made any serious splashes. Victor was a household name when he was 17. Yuri was an embarrassment to both his country and the Katsuki name. 

Yuri sat in the bathtub in the apartment he shared with Phichit. Phichit was out meeting his study group for his biomedical ethics class. Staring down the empty pill bottle in his hands, he felt guilty that Phichit would be the one to find his body. Phichit didn’t deserve that, but Yuri couldn’t find it in him to feel truly remorseful. Or maybe that was just the drugs. 

“ _ Sorry _ ,” Yuri muttered in Japanese to the empty bathroom, apologizing to Vicchan as his eyelids slid shut.

— 

Yuri groaned and opened his eyes to a painfully familiar sight. White walls and plastic chairs seemed to be universal constants in hospitals across the world. Mari had taken up residence in the plastic chair next to his bedside just like before, and Minako and Yuko slumped against one another on the couch in the corner of the room. On the table next to him was a bouquet with hamster balloons—Phichit must have stopped by. Yuri was surprised considering the inevitable pain he had put his best friend through. Yuri almost wished he hadn’t.

Yuri screwed his eyes shut and willed himself not to cry—not only had he added another failure to his growing list, but the hospital bills were bound to send his family into even more debt. The American medical system was dead set on bleeding people dry, and he had hoped to bypass it altogether. 

Something squeezed his hand. He cracked open his left eye to see Mari smiling sadly at him.

“ _ It’s not your fault _ ,” she told him, “ _ So stop making that face. _ ”

“ _ I-I _ ,” Yuri choked, “ _ I’, sor- _ ”

Minako cut him off, tutting loudly, “ _ Stop apologizing for being sick. _ ”

Yuri’s eyes snapped to her face. She looked angry, but her bloodshot eyes gave away that she had been crying. He opened his mouth to apologize for worrying her, but quickly snapped it shut at the hardness in her expression. Yuko had woken by then too, and she got up to stand on the other side of Yuri’s bed and hold his free hand.

“ _ You never have to apologize to us, Yuri _ ,” she said gently, “ _ We know how much you struggle with your own mind. I’m not going to say it’s okay, but I can say that it will be one day. Please don’t ever forget that you have people to lean on when you feel like you can no longer stand on your own. _ ”

Yuri couldn’t fight the tears that were falling freely now. He nodded minutely, and Yuko brushed a strand of hair off his forehead gently. They were interrupted by the arrival of Yuri’s doctor, and Yuri tuned out for the spiel of medical jargon and advice that he had heard before.

— 

The doctor had recommended an extended stay, but Yuri was an adult and was able to choose to leave. The JSF, on the other hand, had stipulated that Yuri was to attend therapy at least once a week in order to maintain his certification. Any press surrounding the incident was kept quiet, and Yuri slowly returned to his life with some modifications.

One of the biggest was that Yuri wasn’t allowed to be alone for extended periods of time. Mari had made him promise to call home every day instead of once a week. Minako and Yuko made him promise to call them regularly, too. When he expressed concerns about international phone rates, they wove him off and said that family was worth it. They were reluctant to leave, but an 18-year-old Phichit and Celestino promised to check in and update them on how Yuri was doing as well.

Because of that stipulation, Phichit ended up going to Yuri’s after hours practices. Celestino watched Yuri like a hawk during their regular practices—something that was largely only possible because a lot of his rink mates took a break at the beginning of summer, with Phichit being the only exception. Phichit was taking an online class, so he would work on that while Yuri was at the rink in the mornings. In the evenings, when Yuri wanted to skate again, Phichit would tag along and do his homework in the bleachers, letting Yuri do his own thing for the most part. 

It was one night, with his head buried in an anatomy textbook, that Phichit heard the music. He looked up and saw Yuri skate in a way that he’d never done in practice. It was raw. Emotional. Haunting. Phichit couldn’t look away as Yuri practiced that routine for the rest of the night.

Yuri threw himself into his training from that night forward, and Phichit saw how much stronger he got for the next two years until his first Grand Prix Final.

* * *

 

Yuri stood at center ice, arms extended as the routine ended and the final notes filtered through the arena. His chest was heaving, and there were tear tracks on his cheeks. There was a pregnant pause before the audience leapt to their feet. Yuri’s routine was met with thunderous applause and more gifts thrown on the ice than even Victor had. Yuri had touched the heart of every single person present. 

Victor had tears in his eyes, and so did everyone else around them. He ran to the Kiss and Cry to meet Yuri, arms outstretched as always. When Yuri reached him, Victor picked Yuri up in his arms and twirled him around.

“Yuri,” Victor murmured, voice low enough that the nearby reporters couldn’t pick it up, “I am so proud of you.”

Yuri cradled Victor’s face in his hands and leaned in to kiss him gently.

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Victor furrowed his brow, “What do you mean?”

Yuri leaned forward and dropped his head onto Victor’s shoulder, “You helped me reach a place I never thought I could get to. And you helped me learn to let go.”

Victor wasn’t quite sure he understood, but he hugged Yuri tightly nonetheless. And when Yuri’s score came up on the screen, he leapt to his feet, dragging Yuri along. Yuri had won. Yuri had beaten out Victor’s score by a whole 1.2 points and had set world records for the highest overall score, highest free program score, and highest performance components score in history. 

Shortly afterwards, they were swarmed by friends and family. Mari, to Victor’s surprise, pulled Yuri into a tight hug. They had never seemed like the hugging kind of siblings, but he supposed the Katsukis would never stop surprising him. Mari whispered something in Yuri’s ear, and Yuri pulled back, smiling as he shook his head. Mari hugged him tighter.

After Mari let him go, Minako grabbed Yuri’s arm, “What was that, Yuri?”

“Is everything okay, Yuri?” Yuko asked, leaning in and searching Yuri’s face.

Yuri nodded wearily, “Actually, yeah.”

Minako narrowed her eyes at him, “Are you sure? You’re not…?”

Yuri chuckled slightly as he shook his head, causing Minako and Yuko to look at him as if he’d gone mad. Yurio furrowed his brows and frowned at him, and Yakov pretended to look disinterested despite leaning in slightly to catch the conversation. 

“Yuri,” Yuko said softly, “What happened?”

Yuri smiled, “Life happened. I’ve changed so much in the last year alone, and I realized that it was time for me to let go.”

“Let go?” Minako probed.

“Let go,” Yuri confirmed, taking Victor’s hand, “I don’t need it anymore. It’s time to stop looking back and focus on my future with Victor instead.”

Victor squeezed his hand, “I’m glad, Yuri. Now, I believe there’s a gold medal with your name on it so we better head back onto the ice.”

The walk to the podium felt surreal. Hand in hand, Victor and Yuri made their way across the ice to where it was set up. Yuri had declined all interviews beforehand, citing a need for rest before the awards ceremony; he had pulled Mr. Morooka aside to arrange an interview afterwards though. Victor wasn’t sure what was going on in Yuri’s head, but then again, he never really did. He just opened up and let Yuri meet him halfway instead of pushing.

When they reached the podium, Victor offered Yuri his hand. Yuri took it, and allowed Victor to help him step up to the top. Victor took his spot to Yuri’s right in second place, and Yurio took his to Yuri’s left in third. Yuri couldn’t contain his smile, and he honestly didn’t want to. 

Yurio gave Yuri a weird look and opened his mouth like he meant to say something before snapping it shut. Yurio opted for giving Yuri a light shove and making him almost fall on Victor (not that Victor would have minded).

For Victor, he had never seen a more beautiful sight than the love of his life standing a step above him on the podium. He has never felt so proud to be beaten out for first place. Yuri had given the world a taste of who he was the year before, but this time around, Yuri had laid all his cards on the table. He bared his soul more than he had ever before, and Victor was sure that he would feel Yuri’s raw emotion flowing through him for the rest of his life. 

— 

After the awards ceremony, Yuri and Victor met Morooka in a meeting room off to the side in the complex for a private interview. Yuri wanted Morooka—the man who had cheered him on and supported him this entire time—to be the first to hear what Yuri had to say about his routine. 

Yuri cradled a cup of hot chocolate in his hands as Morooka pulled out his recorder and a notepad. Victor leaned back and took a long sip of his coffee. The interview was going to be in Japanese so Victor wouldn’t really be able to follow, but Yuri had promised to explain later in English what he was going to tell Morooka. Victor had wanted to be the first to hear it, but he understood that Yuri felt like he owed it to Morooka to explain himself to him first. 

“So, Skater Katsuki,” Morooka began, “The routine you performed tonight that won you a gold medal was not the one you used in the qualifying competitions. Was this a plan to throw your rivals off or was it more of a spur of the moment decision?”

Yuri inhaled deeply, “It was more spur of the moment for me. I woke up this morning next to my fiancé, and it occurred to me that today was the day for me to skate this program.”

“This isn’t a program you’ve ever skated before. Should fans of yours hope to see it again?”

“No,” Yuri answered softly, “This is the first and only time I’ll perform this routine. Today was a sendoff of sorts.”

“How so?” Morooka asked him, “And where did this program come from?”

Yuri was silent for a long moment, looking off to the side, “I started making this program when I was sixteen. It started out as a dance routine that I made after being discharged from the hospital...”

Morooka silently gestured for Yuri to continue.

“I was sixteen the first time I attempted suicide.”

Morooka’s jaw dropped, but he said nothing. Yuri took a long sip of his hot chocolate.

“Art therapy is a common form of treatment for depression. I had already been studying dance for years, and I took up the piano when I was in the hospital too. I recorded the piano cover of ‘Hallelujah’ that I skated to in the routine, actually. It was the first song I learned how to play when I was receiving inpatient treatment. When I was finally allowed back on the ice, I slowly worked on translating the routine from dance to skating, and it’s been something I’ve always skated when I was anxious.”

Morooka jotted down a few notes, “So, Skater Katsuki, you said the first time? What was the second? And what is different now?”

Yuri took another sip of his cocoa, “I was twenty one the second time. I was struggling with balancing university and skating, and I had come off a relatively bad season. I was beating myself up about it, and I felt like everything had come to be too much. So I tried to take my life.

“My second hospitalization was really short. Afterwards, I threw myself into my schooling and skating, and I began practicing this routine again. It had sat in the back of my mind since I left Japan for the U.S., but I hadn’t skated it in the time between. I ended up honing it greatly, using all the skills I had learned from Coach Celestino. 

“He actually saw me perform it once and asked why I had never competed with it, and I told him the truth—this routine was never originally made for me to compete with. It has always been a form of catharsis for me. When I’m anxious, I like to dance or skate, and the times when figures don’t manage to help me calm down, I skate this instead.”

Yuri set his hot chocolate down on the table, one hand nervously running through his hair.

“I’d started skating it a lot after I moved to St. Petersburg not too long ago. I’m so incredibly lucky to have found the love of my life in Victor and to have realized how much everyone in my life loves and supports me, and it became more of a piece of my past that I was holding on to than any real catharsis. I ended up tweaking it as I worked in more of my experiences—especially the Grand Prix Final from two years ago—and this is the end result.”

Yuri picked up his cocoa with one hand, taking a sip, and reached for Victor’s with the other. He gently squeezed Victor’s hand.

“But things are different for me now, both in the way my life is and how I perceive it. I’ve found love, and I don’t plan on letting go of it. There’s so much in life that I do and want to continue doing. I wake up and drink my morning coffee with the most beautiful man in the world, I watch the sun rise over the city every morning, I play with Makkachin—the sweetest old poodle ever, we have Yurio over for dinner at least once a week, last spring we went home to Hasetsu to see the cherry blossoms in bloom. I have nights where I take bubble baths with a glass of wine or nights where Victor and I curl up on the couch and watch the cheesiest movies we can find.”

Victor pressed a kiss to their joined hands.

Yuri smiled at him, “I feel loved, I feel wanted, and I feel ready to truly move forward in life.”

Morooka switched off the recorder, “Thank you for choosing to share your story with me, Skater Katsuki. I’ll do my best to do it justice.”

Yuri stood up and bowed to Morooka, “Thank you for supporting me for so long. I promise to continue to do my best and honor your faith in me.”

**Author's Note:**

> the music I based Yuri's cover of hallelujah is [ this ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc__GxDWEPo)
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at [ glaswitch ](https://glaswitch.tumblr.com)


End file.
